Thousands Of Carats Of Blood Diamonds May Be Set To Hit World Markets – BuzzFeed News

CAR’s other buying house, Badica, was more firmly criticised in the UN experts’ report, which concluded that:

“Badica’s legal and illegal purchases…provided sustainable financial support for the former Séléka, in violation of the United Nations sanctions regime.

“Already in April 2014, the Panel had endeavoured to discuss Badica’s purchasing policy with its managing director in Bangui, who dismissed the Panel’s queries, claiming that the company had ceased purchasing diamonds.”

The Kimberly Process partially lifted the export bans for diamonds from CAR for certain regions of the country not controlled by militias, currently being agreed and approved. The rules will then allow for stockpiled diamonds to be sold, subject to “audit.”

However, the Amnesty report concluded “it is likely that some of the stockpiled diamonds have contributed to funding armed groups.”

“They would therefore constitute “conflict diamonds” under the terms of the Kimberley Process…the President of the World Diamond Council, which represents the diamond industry within the Kimberley Process, has said that any diamonds bought during the ban should not be exported as they are “contaminated goods.”

The report also highlighted millions of dollars’ worth of conflict diamonds are believed to have been smuggled out of CAR through neighbouring countries, and warned that current due diligence procedures may not be enough to prevent some of these arriving in major diamond markets.

It also highlighted the conditions in CAR’s diamond mines, which are often small-scale affairs operated independently. Quoting an International Crisis Group report, it says: